Formal debate proposal: accepting human evolution is not a rejection of orthodoxy

[Mallon]

There was first all the creatures on earth and they all are from a common blueprint. Eyes, ears, butts, hearts etc. clear;y.

Actually, they don't. Characters like the ones you mention are not distributed equally throughout the animal kingdom. They are arranged in a very specific, hierarchical way. For example, all animals with fur have bones, but not all animals with bones have fur. All animals with bones have a deuterostomic blastula, but not all animals with a deuterostomic blastula have bones. All animals with a deuterostomic blastula are bilaterally symmetrical, but not all bilaterally symmtrical animals have a deuterostomic blastula. This is a very specific and consistent pattern found in nature and the ONLY theory that accounts for this distribution of characters in nature is evolutionary common descent. There is NOTHING about a common designer using a common blueprint that says characters must be distributed this way. God could have created animals to be modular if He wanted to, and He could have pieced them together the way we might put together a Mr. Potato Head. Only evolution explains why we DON'T see such chimaeras in nature and why get this hierarchical distribution instead.

so gods options are to either make a man so unrelated to everything that no connection with this common blueprint for everything else can be drawn OR to pick as it were the best type of body for a being that is in the image of GOD.
The ape body lets us swim, dance, play, climb stuff,etc.

I get it. You think the ape bodyplan is a good one that allows us to bring glory to God. I agree. Still, it strikes me that your assessment is a superficial one. Sure, we have ears and eyes and hands like apes that allow us to do all sorts of wonderful things. But we also have the same endogenous retroviruses in our DNA as apes and, as I mentioned earlier (something which you did not address), our chromosome 2 is simply two ape chromosomes (2p and 2q) fused together! Why in the world would God infuse human DNA with such a rich history of ape ancestry? In your mind, how do chimpanzee endogenous retroviruses in our DNA help us bring glory to God? These are things that cannot be accounted for under a "common designer" rubrik.

 

[Mallon]

We've been over the bones in whales thing. It shows a previous important anatomical difference. The bird is minor , if true, details about eating. its still a bird in all matters. Water mammals are quite changed. Very different and unique and so a glaring embarrasment of evolution which would like to find these bone evidfences in everything but doesn't. cause it never happened.

You keep saying these things, Robert, but you have yet to provide some justification for your opinion. Why are fossil snakes and whales with legs evidence for terrestrial ancestry, whereas, say, fossil birds with teeth, claws, and bony tails not also evidence of the same?
Again, you are picking and choosing which pieces of evidence to accept and which to reject. You do not apply the same criteria for common ancestry to ALL forms of life, and as such, I don't think you're being honest with yourself (or us). And until you can justify the view that you hold (1 Peter 3:15) rather than simply repeating your position ad nauseum, it will remain transparent that you are suffering from a serious case of confirmation bias.

The horse/gill thing makes my point of how much creatures should be showing their past body types in their long evolution. Yet they don't.
Otherwise show it. teeth or toes don't count. Its trivial adaptation.

Again, Robert, this statement just goes to show how little you understand the theory of evolution. The theory does not predict that horses with gills will ever be found! In fact, if such a thing were ever to be found, it would completely disprove the theory as we know it today! Check out this family tree (called a cladogram):

Horses are mammals, so they are represented on the far right side of the tree. Now, if you work your way down the tree, you will see that mammals and squamates(lizards)+birds share a common ancestor, which all in turn share a common ancestor with turtles, which all in turn share a common ancestor with amphibians, which all in turn share a common ancestor with fish. Now, the common ancestor of amphibians + all other forms of "higher" vertebrate life (turtles, squamates, birds, mammals) was the first creature to evolve away it gills. It was adapted for life on land, rather than in water. And it happened over 380 million years before horses ever evolved! So do you not see how ridiculous a demand you are making by asking to see a horse with gills??? It's silly and, I'm sorry to say, demonstrates an atrocious understanding of evolution. You really ought to learn about something before you reject it outright as you do.

I haven't studied these claims of vestigal ape stuff for our bodies but remember creationists have dismissed them as minor cases of error unrelated to ape ancestry.

Ah, yes. Creationists said it, so it must be true. Good point!
Honestly, Robert, why not try and look at the evidence for yourself sometime? Why not take the same criterion you use for gauging the ancestry of whales and snakes and apply it to the coccyx, the plica semilunaris, or the goosebump reflex of humans? It helps to leave you comfort zone every once in a while.

 

[Melethiel]

But the coccyx and the plica semilunaris are useful! They can't be vestigial!

 

[Mallon]

But the coccyx and the plica semilunaris are useful! They can't be vestigial!

Ah, but that's not an argument Robert can make because whale pelves anchor muscles as well.

 

[RobertByers]

Mallon
Birds do not have anatomical evidence for very different previous lives that confirm evolution. The snakes/whales do. Their legs would dramatically change their lives. Birds teeth/claws if true would still leave just a bird. One would have to look closely to notice the difference.
Save for a few water mammals/snakes there is no evidence in creatures of previous anatomical lifestyles of any substance. Anything different is minor variation not much different then one finds today.

The ape/man thing is as I said what a creationist should want to find. God picking the best type of bode for a being in the image of God in the soul.
All these chromesomes are irrelevant and just what one would or could expect. Same with virus or any bugs in the bodies. Your just first seeing the man from the ape and then seeing minor details as evidence of this.
Creationists should not, I don't, want to find anything different in the ape body as from ours. A little bit of stance, brain, etc and better looking, speaking for myself, but otherwise creationism should seek and teach the sameness of the ape body with the human. otherwise God would be breaking the laws of nature on his common blueprints of form and function. God would have to figure a body for us that would be so different no one can imagine what it would like.
It has to be that God would pick a body plan for us that all ready existed on earth as all bodies on earth are just a little different from each other.
Creationism has not embraced the ape as Gods model.

 

[Mallon]

Hi Robert,

Mallon
Birds do not have anatomical evidence for very different previous lives that confirm evolution. The snakes/whales do. Their legs would dramatically change their lives. Birds teeth/claws if true would still leave just a bird. One would have to look closely to notice the difference.
Save for a few water mammals/snakes there is no evidence in creatures of previous anatomical lifestyles of any substance. Anything different is minor variation not much different then one finds today.

You seem to place a lot of emphasis on the transitional morphology of animals as it relates to previous modes of life, as though the only way for an animal to evolve is to move from land to water or vice versa. I can't fathom why this should be, though. It is entirely possible for an animal to evolve from a terrestrial ancestor and remain terrestrial itself. And indeed, the changes may not be as dramatic, given that an entire overhaul of the locomotory system would not be warranted, but it's evolution nonetheless.
As for birds, fossil forms with teeth and claws may still look like birds, but if you continue down the line, they begin to look less and less like birds and more and more like theropod dinosaurs. Would you consider this (Sinosauropteryx) a bird?

How about the skeleton of Archaeopteryx? Does it look more like that of a theropod dinosaur or a chicken?

The ape/man thing is as I said what a creationist should want to find. God picking the best type of bode for a being in the image of God in the soul.

This argument is both ad hoc and non sequitur. Two logical fallacies in one sentence. It does not follow that an omnipotent God must choose from His creation an already existing body type into which to breathe His image. God could have created an entirely new body type for that, if He wanted to. So I don't think similarities between apes and humans are something neocreationists should expect to find. And apparently a lot of our YEC brethren feel the same way because they expend an awful lot of energy trying to spot the differences between us and chimpanzees.
(On a related note, I loved this recent little bit of news: http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2008/12/dmanisi-and-aig.html).

All these chromesomes are irrelevant

Actually, they're not. They completely undermine your argument. Endogenous retroviral sequences, which humans and apes share, are strands of DNA that get inserted into the genome by parasitic viruses, which are then transmitted to all subsequent offspring through the generations. That is, they reflect ancestor-descendant relationships (common ancestry). So the fact that we share endogenous retroviral insertions with apes is very strong evidence that humans are evolved from apes. The only way for you to get around this explanation is if you devise an entirely new ad hoc scenario in which God first created apes, allowed them to evolve and accumulate retroviral insertions of their own, then used that virus-riddled DNA blueprint to create humans. And no doubt you'll say this is yet another something that neocreationism predicted all along.
More here:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section4.html#retroviruses

creationism should seek and teach the sameness of the ape body with the human.

I would love to see you peddle this in the anti-evolution subforum.

It has to be that God would pick a body plan for us that all ready existed on earth as all bodies on earth are just a little different from each other.

Why does it HAVE to be that way? Can't God create whatever He likes?

Creationism has not embraced the ape as Gods model.

Are you implying evolutionary creationism does?